A Tramroad Seat Anyone ?
Images : John Woodman
From time to time odd bits of local tramway history pop up in the most unlikely places. Last year an ebay posting saw an original Blackpool Corporation Tramways crest which used the early Corporation coat of arms before formal incorporation of the town and its approved familiar seagull and waves design. A frantic bidding online secured this probably unique version for eventual display.
Tucked away at Farmer Parr's in Broadwater in the eclectic local museum among diverse artifacts and unrecognised as such is an original swingover tram seat (for two) which could well have come off a Tramroad car. Painted in a somewhat gaudy and definitely not politically correct colour - the seat is an interesting survivor providently preserved within half a mile of the tramroad line. Comments from more informed historians as to its possible tram conveyance are welcomed.
A part of the upright of the tram bodywork still in place. Possibly retrieved from scrapped cars in the wartime fleet reduction taking place at Copse Road Depot?
Most recently and again via ebay in June 1934 a French visitor to Blackpool took some 'snaps' of his (or her) stay in the town. A souvenir and atmospheric image of the Tower from a point where the current northbound tram stop is captured two Blackpool Standard cars - one in the new green fleet livery and the other still in its red and white colours - with a Lytham St Annes 'Pullman' car passing by the camera. Even a new railcoach got in on the act just coming from behind one of the Standards. Of course this is in black and white but a little imagination can conjure up the colourful scene of that brief moment. Pasted into an album with an inked annotation (in French of course) and the date on the back of the photo it now joins my archive for use in a future book. Two earlier 'snaps' taken probably in the Great War almost at the start of the reserved track towards Bispham caught both a 'Box' car and Company 'Yankee' car speeding close towards the photographer. The empty fields looking towards Bispham catch a time when housebuilders had yet to develop land north of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
No doubt there are many similar 'gems' in other private collections awaiting the attention of an aspiring author?
